PATH Blog

In the news: pig spill, poo wars

It must have been a tough choice for New York Times op-ed contributors Charles J. Vorosmarty and Claudia Pahl-Wostil: Lead off with the dead pig spill in China’s Huangpu River, the 8 million plastic discs covered with sewage in Massachusetts’ Merrimack, or the annual 16-ton load of ashes from cremated bodies in the Ganges? And if that’s not enough to grab your attention, read on for the really shocking part: “Exposure to unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation results in 3.4 million deaths, mostly poor children, each year from diarrhea, yet this fact never makes the news.”

Delivering water from disaster

The New York Times, June 10, 2013

If one incident best highlights the perilous state of the world’s fresh waters, it’s the “pig spill” in China last March. After the slaughter and illegal dumping of a diseased herd, the authorities in Shanghai went fishing for 16,000 bloated carcasses in the Huangpu River, which flows through the city. Hardly the thing you wish to hear about if you use the Huangpu for drinking water.